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11 November 2009

Holy blue potatoes Batman...

I used to love blue cornchips, they were sturdier and had a deeper corn flavour than their anemic yellow counterparts. Heirloom carrots in purple have been a winner recently as well so it was with some excitement that I pounced on these beauties at Borough the other day. These farmers in Kent make so many varieties its positively overwhelming but I settled on 'Blue Salad' because they were one of the oldest they had on offer. Apparently in this context salad didnt mean salad potatoes as they recommended boiling or roasting them. So I par boiled and then roasted them and served them with some sea bass baked over dill and lemon and gussied up with capers, purple sprouting broccoli and slow roasted cherry tomatoes. All from the borough of course.

So delicious!

The next week they really needed using so I decided to try them as a soup - but the idea of purple soup definitely appealed (god knows why). It started off ok but the final result was rather, um, greyer than I thought it would be. Not a bit grey I mean really quite an unappealing unappetizing grey. I suppose its not entirely unsurprising and I don't think only having red wine helped a whole lot but it did taste quite a bit better than it looks. Its pictured below.

Recipe really easy - In a soup pot or cast iron casserole fry 3 leeks and 1 onion in olive oil over low heat for about 10 mins until soft. Peel and chop 1.5kg potatoes. Add 1 glass (or so) of wine (probably white is better, or even sake, rice wine, sherry, whatever you have) and let bubble up and away to nothing. Add the potatoes then 1L stock and boil for 20mins until everything is soft. Zhuzh until as smooth as you like with your hand blender and serve HOT with some crusty bread.